1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the mobile communications field and, in particular, to a smart card wallet for use in making electronic transactions via a mobile phone.
2. Description of Related Art
Smart cards are used for a variety of applications, including Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards in cellular phones, cash cards for banking, loyalty cards, identification cards, etc. Certain smart cards are reprogrammable, such as Java cards and MULTOS cards. Descriptions of such smart cards can be found on the World-Wide Web at "The Java Card Forum," and "www.multos.com." As such, most smart cards available today are used to store single applications. However, certain smart cards like MULTOS and Java cards exist that can store several applications (e.g., multi-application cards).
Most persons' wallets carry numerous types of cards for different services, such as, for example, credit cards, bank cards, loyalty cards, drivers licenses, etc. As such, multi-application cards would be useful to incorporate some of these services on the same card. Although such a capability provides an opportunity to reduce the number of cards carried in a wallet, it is not likely to be implemented soon. For example, competing companies would not likely to agree to have their services provided by the same card, even if such a card provides an excellent opportunity for a company to increase the exposure of its name and logo. In other words, such a card would be useful for "branding" purposes.
The existing cards are being used for single applications. For example, one card is used as a credit card, another is used for debit or loyalty applications, etc. Also, most existing cards also employ magnetic stripes to make transactions. These cards can be used directly at the sellers' locations, where they can be read by a magnetic stripe reader, or indirectly via a phone or the Internet by relaying the card number to the seller.
In the near future, most magnetic stripe cards will be replaced by smart cards. Albeit, in some countries (e.g., France and Belgium), these replacements have already occurred. For example, the so-called "Proton" card is a smart card that stores electronic "cash". In fact, pilot projects using electronic cash cards have been conducted all over Europe.
As such, in order to store electronic "money" on such a cash card, a user can visit an Automated Teller Machine (ATM), or establish an electronic connection with a bank via a processor equipped with a card reader. In the latter case, if a mobile phone were to be equipped with a smart card reader, this electronic "money" could be stored in the phone from anywhere (e.g., a "wireless wallet"). Such an approach has been disclosed in European Patent Publication No. 96-477325 and 97-181297 to W. Kubanski.
Electronic wallets holding one or two cards have also been disclosed. For example, European Patent Publication No. 97-427471 to J. Furuya et al. discloses a wallet with one card slot, a display and input buttons. European Patent Publication No. 97-427457 to Y. Abe et al. discloses a wallet with two card slots. European Patent Publication No. 90-052987 to S. Komaki et al. discloses a card reader housed inside a wallet. European Patent Publication No. 97-472591 discloses a wallet with a compartment for a card reader. As illustrated by these publications, although a number of electronic wallet approaches have been disclosed, a significant problem has arisen that is not resolved by the existing approaches.
This problem can be best illustrated by the following example. When a customer purchases an airline ticket at a counter, the ticket agent may request the customer's credit card and frequent flyer card. These cards or their account numbers are then read in or keyed in, and their respective accounts are updated to reflect the completed transaction. The read in operations are typically performed with a card reader at the ticket counter.
Alternatively, the cards' information can be provided to an agent over the phone. In that case, the customer states the card account numbers and expiration dates to the agent over the phone. Normally, the agent does not request authorization/authentication information from the customer over the phone, and the cards do not maintain "files" that can be updated to reflect the transactions made. Consequently, if an unauthorized user obtains a valid customer's credit card account number, the user can deplete the account over the phone in a relatively short time.
One way to improve the security of credit card transactions would be to use smart cards instead of magnetic stripe cards. For example, a Personal Identification Number (PIN) code could be required to allow access to account information stored on a card. Such a PIN code should provide adequate user authentication protection. However, it is not possible to make a smart credit card purchase over existing phones, because the information stored on the smart card has to be accessed and checked electronically. Nevertheless, as described in detail below, the present invention of a smart card wallet employed with a mobile phone successfully resolves this problem and other related problems.